Official Cryptocurrency Thread: Skepticism to Speculation to FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!

Discussion in 'The Mainboard' started by Nantucket, Jan 29, 2017.

  1. user15000

    user15000 Well-Known Member

    Lol. Speaking of problems with reading comprehension.
     
  2. Lyrtch

    Lyrtch My second favorite meat is hamburger
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    dont get it twisted, i think the narrative is extremely stupid but dont discount its value as speculative investment or able to sell a narrative to a world primed to accept it
     
  3. Lyrtch

    Lyrtch My second favorite meat is hamburger
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    huh
     
  4. user15000

    user15000 Well-Known Member

    Stupid narratives don’t lead to 12 years of the fastest growing asset class in history. How many people in Nigeria, Ukraine, El Salvador, Tonga, and countless other countries all over the world are even aware of whatever narrative you ascribe to btc? Of the tens of millions who own btc, I’ll venture a guess that very few are monitoring daily crypto Twitter for narratives.

    I’m also curious what you think the narrative is since there are about 10+ I could think of. Gold 2.0, future global reserve currency, savings technology, get rich quick scheme, payments technology, etc.
     
  5. Lyrtch

    Lyrtch My second favorite meat is hamburger
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    why not to the bold?

    and all of it
     
  6. user15000

    user15000 Well-Known Member

    I think you have problems with reading comprehension. Jackson's thread paints in ridiculously broad strokes, and you choose to ignore all of that to focus on two words and then leap to him taking a limiting approach. That's dumb.

    There is nothing remotely limiting about the following:

    -The cryptocurrency industry leverages a network of shady business connections, bought influencers and pay-for-play media outlets to perpetuate a cult-like “get rich quick” funnel designed to extract new money from the financially desperate and naive. comment on the entire industry.
    -Despite claims of “decentralization”, the cryptocurrency industry is controlled by a powerful cartel of wealthy figures who, with time, have evolved to incorporate many of the same institutions tied to the existing centralized financial system they supposedly set out to replace. comment on the entire industry.
    -After years of studying it, I believe that cryptocurrency is an inherently right-wing, hyper-capitalistic technology built primarily to amplify the wealth of its proponents through a combination of tax avoidance, diminished regulatory oversight and artificially enforced scarcity. comment on the entire technology ("primarily" only limits the built clause with everything else applying to the tech)
     
  7. Lyrtch

    Lyrtch My second favorite meat is hamburger
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    these are all true

    and primarily leaves space for the legitimate coins you all talkin' about as cover for the scams
     
  8. Lyrtch

    Lyrtch My second favorite meat is hamburger
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    libertarian-ish ideology stapled to tech is a fantastic combination rhetorically. its why the shift for BTC to "digital gold" was so seamless.

    big audience for this
     
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  9. Harrison Beck

    Harrison Beck Bailout Bro
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    We need regulation.
     
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  10. Harrison Beck

    Harrison Beck Bailout Bro
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    I understand what you're getting at here but why can't it just be viewed as a new financial instrument?
     
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  11. user15000

    user15000 Well-Known Member

    No they're not true. See how easy that is?

    Because if all btc had going for it was a narrative, then it would've failed years ago. The narrative would've failed, or some better tech would've come along, or the tech would've failed, or or or.

    Honestly, I think your position on it is a joke. "I think this is really stupid, and I'm way smarter than everyone in the space, but I'm still going to buy it because other people might be really stupid too." That's a bullshit stance that paints you as the smartest guy in the room whether it succeeds (see everyone is dumb) or fails (see I said it was dumb). At the end of the day, you own it. Your mental gymnastics as to why are irrelevant.
    Do tell as to when you think the shift to "digital gold" for btc took place? The white paper makes references to gold, which I'd venture a guess you didn't know.

    Here's a Satoshi post from August 2010 making another comparison: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=583.msg11405#msg11405

    Satoshi post
    As a thought experiment, imagine there was a base metal as scarce as gold but with the following properties:
    - boring grey in colour
    - not a good conductor of electricity
    - not particularly strong, but not ductile or easily malleable either
    - not useful for any practical or ornamental purpose

    and one special, magical property:
    - can be transported over a communications channel

    If it somehow acquired any value at all for whatever reason, then anyone wanting to transfer wealth over a long distance could buy some, transmit it, and have the recipient sell it.

    Maybe it could get an initial value circularly as you've suggested, by people foreseeing its potential usefulness for exchange. (I would definitely want some) Maybe collectors, any random reason could spark it.

    I think the traditional qualifications for money were written with the assumption that there are so many competing objects in the world that are scarce, an object with the automatic bootstrap of intrinsic value will surely win out over those without intrinsic value. But if there were nothing in the world with intrinsic value that could be used as money, only scarce but no intrinsic value, I think people would still take up something.

    (I'm using the word scarce here to only mean limited potential supply)
     
  12. Lyrtch

    Lyrtch My second favorite meat is hamburger
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    BTC specifically? would be curious what you argue is underlying it as valuable, as the utility case for BTC I've never found coercive. I think it could literally still be relevant when we're all dead because of the narrative case and I think this is where theres some tension in this thread, I mostly focus on the utility cases vs just "is it a good investment" side. The narrative case is the biggest reason gold is as valuable as it is, goldbugs are nuts but for a specific group of doomers its coercive.
     
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  13. Lyrtch

    Lyrtch My second favorite meat is hamburger
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    i'll stick to arguing with the non-lunatics of this thread

    also I don't CURRENTLY own any, had to take my profits in the 50's.
     
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  14. user15000

    user15000 Well-Known Member

    While I’m here, early congrats to everyone on the ETH flippening tomorrow.

    I expect to take shit for this if it ever happens in the future.
     
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  15. Lyrtch

    Lyrtch My second favorite meat is hamburger
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    also i missed the edit, your thought experiment is not different from what I've said regarding the narrative case being BTC's super power? the problem is the downside risk is literally BTC going to 0 if the "value" is just "people believe it has value"
     
  16. Whammy

    Whammy Donde es
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    [​IMG]
     
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  17. user15000

    user15000 Well-Known Member

    Ahahahahahahaha

    You’re not arguing anything. You just have nothing coherent to say in response.

    Btc’s digital gold “shift” started with the white paper or with Satoshi posts in 2010. But go ahead and act like it happened recently.

    Saying it has no utility is funny. Carry on with that.
     
  18. Whammy

    Whammy Donde es
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    Oh - BTW user15000 got off the BlockFi Bitcoin Rewards card list yesterday, pumped AF to get it next week
     
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  19. user15000

    user15000 Well-Known Member

    Udi is a solid troll for btc and eth.
     
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  20. Whammy

    Whammy Donde es
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    I just hope BlockFi remains solvent lol
     
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  21. user15000

    user15000 Well-Known Member

    My brother is getting his. I’ll likely order one soon.

    also for btc purchases, Strike just launched the ability to buy on the app for like 10-30 basis points which is like $10-$30 for a $10k purchase. Really cheap for anyone interested.
     
  22. Harrison Beck

    Harrison Beck Bailout Bro
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    BTC yes. Bolded is prob fair. I'm much less interested in the changing narratives than I am with like the network security aspect of it. It kind of blows my mind how we live in this world where every online account/log in/email has likely been hacked or is on the dark web for purchase and we have this thing that hasn't been hacked ever. What does that mean? What applications could be built on it? I have no idea but I know that's pretty valuable and certainly has some utility.
     
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  23. dblplay1212

    dblplay1212 Well-Known Member
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    SHORT IT PUSSY
     
  24. Lyrtch

    Lyrtch My second favorite meat is hamburger
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    i completely concede the utility of blockchain is legitimate (and why beyond investing banks/governments/etc are researching and building things on it to test future use)
     
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  25. Harrison Beck

    Harrison Beck Bailout Bro
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    eh Idk that gold 2.0 really was the main narrative until 2017. After the blocksize debate ended the "peer to peer payments" narrative had to change. I can certainly see the narrative shifting again.
     
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  26. user15000

    user15000 Well-Known Member

    Point being, Satoshi was making direct comparisons to gold as far back as the white paper and August 2010. He is far from the only person to make the comparison that far back. The Winklevoss twins bought in summer 2012 based on the same digital gold narrative:

    "The second thing was, if you look at the properties of Bitcoin, they really mirror gold, and they are actually the equal or better of gold properties. So if you look at gold, gold is scarce. Bitcoin is truly fixed at 21 million Bitcoin, and those are divisible up to 100 million pieces, so you don't actually have to buy a full Bitcoin. That's one of the biggest education hurdles I think, we see, is people see Bitcoin at $50,000 and they say, ''I can never afford a Bitcoin.'' Well, you can actually go to Gemini and buy as little as $5 worth of Bitcoin. It's not like Berkshire (NYSE:BRK.A)(NYSE:BRK.B) Class A shares, where you have to pony up a couple of $100,000. You can actually just buy small fractions. So it's even more divisible than gold, way more portable, and easier to store inasmuch as it doesn't take up physical space. Storing it is obviously one of the hard problems that Gemini tries to solve for in allowing customers to use Gemini to store their Bitcoin and other crypto. But really, the digital gold framework in narrative struck us right away, as this is a potential emergent store of value that has gold-like properties that works on the internet."

    https://www.fool.com/investing/2021/03/28/heres-when-the-winklevoss-twins-first-discovered-b/

    I'll concede that the 2017 blocksize debate was in part about competing narratives (payments v. smaller blocks), but surprisingly little of the back and forth among the key players was about the narrative issue. The tech and implementation was far more important. The Blocksize War book does a good job going through all of this and is a good read if interested.
     
  27. user15000

    user15000 Well-Known Member

    The narrative shift to new money and the digital rebellion has arrived.

     
  28. Whammy

    Whammy Donde es
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    Edit: user1500000’ed

    The Left establishment all in on Crypto, you love to see it

     
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  29. Harrison Beck

    Harrison Beck Bailout Bro
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    Get in pussies, were boiling the oceans
     
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  30. dblplay1212

    dblplay1212 Well-Known Member
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    Nice commercial.
     
  31. Lyrtch

    Lyrtch My second favorite meat is hamburger
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    legit vomited
     
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  32. dblplay1212

    dblplay1212 Well-Known Member
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    Some of his Cap1 commercials were good too.
     
  33. user15000

    user15000 Well-Known Member

    Poor people aren’t showing up to Jerome Powell’s doorstep to protest all the inflation, so bitcoin will fix his fuckups.
     
  34. Lyrtch

    Lyrtch My second favorite meat is hamburger
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    and you get irritated at shitposting

    smdh
     
  35. user15000

    user15000 Well-Known Member

    Difference between a post clearly in jest and what you do in here.

    I assume you don’t agree with Powell’s statements today, but maybe I’m wrong.
     
  36. Lyrtch

    Lyrtch My second favorite meat is hamburger
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    we'll skip this since I imagine from context clues you think inflation is much much higher than measured and the risk of runaway inflation is very high etc

    i could be wrong though
     
  37. dblplay1212

    dblplay1212 Well-Known Member
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    :laugh:
     
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  38. Harrison Beck

    Harrison Beck Bailout Bro
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    Lol you are literally the “bitcoin fixes this” meme come to life
     
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  39. user15000

    user15000 Well-Known Member

    Was more talking about his comment that the Fed is not exacerbating wealth inequality and that the poor and working class don't complain to him.

    I disagree with the premise of measuring inflation for a broad set of people, when it's necessarily an individual analysis. That said, I think the effects of massive money printing have been pretty obvious over the past 18 months. Asset holders will continue to get richer, the poor and the working class will lose out.

    To the extent that commercial stands for "digital property rights and savings technology for anyone on the planet with a phone and the internet," guilty. And if I can't argue that bitcoin fixes the Fed, then that meme is pretty worthless to start no?
     
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  40. Lyrtch

    Lyrtch My second favorite meat is hamburger
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    i think by the nature of how the fed can impact things the short term is obviously going to aid asset holders over people who don't hold assets but the full employment goal will aid the working class bigly through wage growth

    its a good change for the fed over the old operating system where stagnant wages and little focus on decreasing unemployment were intentional positions to keep workers desperate that aided business owners over labor. the new model will tilt those scales towards labor.
     
  41. user15000

    user15000 Well-Known Member

    I've seen nothing to indicate that wage growth will remotely keep pace with things the working class might want to buy someday, but I suppose we won't agree on that.

    And consider me skeptical that asset holders and the upper class getting ridiculously wealthy due to fed policy is somehow good for the working class. That might as well be a right-wing talking point.
     
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  42. Lyrtch

    Lyrtch My second favorite meat is hamburger
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    would need to define the bold, as most the things people point to (housing) the price catastrophe has no relation to the Fed

    again, the opposite is the scenario we saw for 40 years, unnecessarily high unemployment, zero wage growth, an economy running cold, and likely to be similar inflation to what we'll see over the next decade. do we just keep doing that or try something different?

    the dynamic isn't asset prices going up = wage growth, it's that spiking the economy back to full employment leads to a hot economy, strong labor positioning, wage growth, and strong asset growth. everybody eats and based on the outlined reconciliation bill we'll be using the legislative path to recapture some of that outsized growth at the top. capital gains tax increases, top tax bracket increases, etc all are corrective measures that won't have a material impact on the economy as a whole. (wealth tax needs to happen too)
     
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  43. user15000

    user15000 Well-Known Member

    Inflation doesn't exist as long as you don't aspire to buy anything that anyone else wants.

    In your version of "everybody eats," it's basically the upper class getting rich as fuck and the lower class maybe having jobs making hourly rates that on paper sound nice but that don't end up buying shit because every asset class has gone up.

    Ultimately, I think they have no option but to inflate the money supply. I'll selfishly do what I need to in order to protect my own wealth from the money printing. I think any approach other than "own hard assets" won't keep up, and the game will benefit the financially literate asset holders--i.e., not the working class.
     
  44. Lyrtch

    Lyrtch My second favorite meat is hamburger
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    are you just a monetarist or?

    it makes sense with the money printing remark and the BTC obsession but never got a clear read
     
  45. user15000

    user15000 Well-Known Member

    I had to Google the term, so ummmm I don’t think so.

    Simply someone who likes following macro and need a way to preserve purchasing power (like most). In general, I am supremely frustrated with a system where I can work for and earn $X and then have to become an investment professional on the side because simply holding dollars is a surefire way to lose purchasing power.
     
  46. Lyrtch

    Lyrtch My second favorite meat is hamburger
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    we've averaged like sub 2% inflation for my lifetime while the stock returns have averaged ~7% a year. throw it all in an ETF and you're good. even just high yield savings account and over our lifetimes you'd probably be even.

    0% inflation is in fact very very bad. why i mention monetarists are they are about the only people, not even really them but their ideological priors in the austrian school folks who think 0% inflation is great and everything comes down to monetary supply. any "money printed" devalues the rest proportionally, etc. it's all just archaic nonsense that isn't supported by anything empirical but unfortunately got huge power for a long time.
     
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  47. user15000

    user15000 Well-Known Member

    I've said multiple times that if my money wasn't primarily in btc it would be in some nasdaq and sp500 index funds. I don't view what I'm doing as a gamble.

    I don't think that your view of an "average" inflation generally tracks with what I experience for inflation where I live, with my lifestyle, etc.

    Why is 0% inflation bad? Why is inflation necessary at all? The natural state of a whole hell of a lot of things in the market is deflationary. Damn near everything related to tech is deflationary--tvs, computers, phones, AI, cars, etc. Remove the government intervention, and you're left with tech driving prices down. And that's bad why? It's bad now, at this current point in time in history, because we're at the end of a massive debt bubble and if the fed doesn't keep the game going the entire system crumbles and has to be rebuilt after a lot of ugly years. And I get that. Their only option is to inflate. So fine, I accept that as the game and will buy btc accordingly. But that doesn't answer the fundamental question of why an economy has to have inflation.

    Edit to add 2 things: btc generally tracks with the Austrian view; time will tell whether that's right. The Price of Tomorrow by Jeff Booth is a good book on inflation/deflation/tech. He came to btc after it was published, but either way, I tend to align with his macro outlook on the issues.
     
    #16997 user15000, Jul 14, 2021
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2021
  48. Lyrtch

    Lyrtch My second favorite meat is hamburger
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    we'll skip the aggregate inflation denial as i imagine a rich guy in a wealthy city having things impact his lifestyle is going to get goofy with lets say luxury price increases that aren't relevant to the broader community, but yes stronger re-distributive impact of taxation will correct for some of the outsized inflation in luxury products.

    0% inflation being bad, especially as a target, is something to google as it's way too lengthy a discussion to type out and it's currently universally held as bad so it's not even contentious. tldr versions are it'll lead to negative growth, inflexibility of wages, decreases the ability of the fed to respond to externalities, on and on. it's just asking to crash an economy.
     
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  49. Lyrtch

    Lyrtch My second favorite meat is hamburger
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    tbh user15000 i think if you're REALLY interested in this stuff would be to go way macro and read about the last century of economic thought, as the 0% inflation, anti government intervention full stop, and focus on money supply is austrian school ideology that led to monetarists etc. it's easier to understand this stuff from the framework of why those ideas came into existing, the empirical support behind them, and why ideas have changed as time progressed.

    it'd also make obvious why lots of people call crypto a right wing fever dream
     
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  50. user15000

    user15000 Well-Known Member

    It doesn’t have to get goofy. If I ever want to buy a house/apartment where I live, those prices have gone up considerably more than the general CPI numbers over the last decade+.

    Anyway, I’ve read plenty on the inflation/deflation debate. We can both save some time because we’ll fundamentally disagree, and nothing I do will change the fact that we do have a central bank, they are going to print, and inflation will exist. So I’ll act accordingly.
     
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